NOTES for Mat 22:34-40
What, then, is the "newness" of the New Covenant? Is there really anything new in Jesus' words when, quoting the Old Testament, He names the chief commandments, the commandments to love God and neighbor? Yes, because before the incarnation, before God became man, people did not fulfill the Covenant made with God, but broke it.
But God is faithful to the end. He not only fulfilled the Covenant Himself, but did it also on behalf of the human being He had created, who had sinned. Fallen man could not be faithful, and God became incarnate and Himself fulfilled the Covenant given by human beings to Him. He did what we ought to do; He not only showed us an example, a path, but Himself became the Way by which we are to walk, the Truth which we can follow, in which we can believe, and the Life by which we can live.